Meritocracy

[vulcanlogician]

These welfare benefits do not in any way confer a high quality of life--I could not imagine living that way--so I'm not making an argument that these people are just "too lazy" to work. 

A great majority of people want to work but can't. Do you think they should swallow their pride and work at Arby's? I'd rater give 20% of my income just to ensure they don't have to work at Arby's. Like you, I've never been on welfare. But I don't see welfare recipients as "freeloaders."

You have to look at the big picture. The Arby's corporation itself is the real freeloader.

"But they make so much work is done," you may object. "They generate wealth." So what? What does Arby's do that is more important than what a welfare mother does? Sell shitty roast beef sandwiches? So what? I've known welfare recipients that put Arby's to shame if you consider love and compassion more valuable than shitty roast beef.

But we don't live in a country that values love and compassion. We live in a country that values shitty roast beef. Yee ha! Let's pass these values on to our children.

[tackattack]

Is your/our/a society equal or egalitarian enough, fundamentally, to be an effective meritocracy? Meritocracy can mean treating people with fundamentally unequal backgrounds as superficially the same which ignores and even conceals the real advantages and disadvantages that are unevenly distributed to different segments of an inherently unequal society. What would it take to make your society more meritorious in it's reward system. At what threshold of egalitarianism could a move from elitism of person to meritorious structure be a better step? Would it be a better step? Just open for thoughts and discussions.

I think people are (ideally) entitled to 100% of the fruits of their labor. But no one seems to be able to be figure out how to do things without some exploitation. It's like exploitation is some kind of constant that makes production possible. I think Marx had a pretty good idea of a meritocracy, but all the attempts to realize his vision are worse (in the exploitation department) than capitalism.

To me, elimination of all exploitation is essential if you are aiming for a "meritocracy." I mean, you can't call it a meritocracy if your "merit" can be claimed by those to whom it does not belong.

One thing I think we could do is implement free education (all the way through grad school) to students who demonstrate mastery. Scholarships and such do this to some degree, but they are more like a lottery (much of the time) than a functionary system that rewards merit.

Listen, I'm not a fan of Marxism particularly. We live in a meritocracy now. It's simply the measure of merit is how much money you make. I think we could step that in a better direction by saying "how much money you make with eco friendly means" or "how much money you make without stepping on other people". I'd prefer a non-capitalist focus like "the most intelligent well meaning philanthrope is the top of the hierarchy and the rest are ranked by IQ, EQ and intention" because I do feel capitalism exacerbates greed. I don't lean towards the strictly deterministic because I'm not sure it takes into account unknown variables very well.

I'm not certain we agree on a definition of fruits, or what exploitation is in these instances, but we can agree that a great first step would be education. It would also be the best place to small scale a meritorious system.

Yes labor is a merit, generating useful ideas is merit, moving the economy is merit. In some places, having lots of likes facebook or youtube is worthy of merit by ad companies, tricking the population to buy things it doesn't need, being a celebrity, convincing people that debt is good... all those are merited somewhere. I think one of the few useful ways to work on societal change is to examine and manipulate it's framework. What would you prefer to see at the top of the dominance hierarchy we call society: ability, beauty, money, power, wealth, education, work ethic, crops produced, etc. and why?

[downbeatplumb]

Is your/our/a society equal or egalitarian enough, fundamentally, to be an effective meritocracy? Meritocracy can mean treating people with fundamentally unequal backgrounds as superficially the same which ignores and even conceals the real advantages and disadvantages that are unevenly distributed to different segments of an inherently unequal society. What would it take to make your society more meritorious in it's reward system. At what threshold of egalitarianism could a move from elitism of person to meritorious structure be a better step? Would it be a better step? Just open for thoughts and discussions.

In my organisation job applications are anonymized and gender and  age stripped from them until the interview invite.

[Anomalocaris]

I think people are (ideally) entitled to 100% of the fruits of their labor. But no one seems to be able to be figure out how to do things without some exploitation. It's like exploitation is some kind of constant that makes production possible. I think Marx had a pretty good idea of a meritocracy, but all the attempts to realize his vision are worse (in the exploitation department) than capitalism.

To me, elimination of all exploitation is essential if you are aiming for a "meritocracy." I mean, you can't call it a meritocracy if your "merit" can be claimed by those to whom it does not belong.

One thing I think we could do is implement free education (all the way through grad school) to students who demonstrate mastery. Scholarships and such do this to some degree, but they are more like a lottery (much of the time) than a functionary system that rewards merit.

Listen, I'm not a fan of Marxism particularly. We live in a meritocracy now. It's simply the measure of merit is how much money you make. I think we could step that in a better direction by saying "how much money you make with eco friendly means" or "how much money you make without stepping on other people". I'd prefer a non-capitalist focus like "the most intelligent well meaning philanthrope is the top of the hierarchy and the rest are ranked by IQ, EQ and intention" because I do feel capitalism exacerbates greed. I don't lean towards the strictly deterministic because I'm not sure it takes into account unknown variables very well.

I'm not certain we agree on a definition of fruits, or what exploitation is in these instances, but we can agree that a great first step would be education. It would also be the best place to small scale a meritorious system.

Yes labor is a merit, generating useful ideas is merit, moving the economy is merit. In some places, having lots of likes facebook or youtube is worthy of merit by ad companies, tricking the population to buy things it doesn't need, being a celebrity, convincing people that debt is good... all those are merited somewhere. I think one of the few useful ways to work on societal change is to examine and manipulate it's framework. What would you prefer to see at the top of the dominance hierarchy we call society: ability, beauty, money, power, wealth, education, work ethic, crops produced, etc. and why?

Hardly.   In our society, the single best predictor of whether you would make a lot of money remains whether you inherited a lot of money.

[tackattack]

@downbeatplumb which is a fair step towards equality of opportunity until the face-to-face where we humans add all our biases in naturally. That promotes a more egalitarian society and I think it's helpful to have a more egalitarian focused society when working towards what dictates success. Equality of opportunity is not equality of outcome though and it's been shown that more egalitarian societies actually accentuate fundamental differences in the subject strengthening the pareto distribution and creating more inequality in individuals.

@Anomalocaris - ok so money is the merit by which we currently measure merit. It's predicted best by how much you inherit as opposed to how much you earn. This identifies an extreme of the pareto distribution, but my question was what, in your opinion, would be a better measure of merit and how would we switch to that.

[Anomalocaris]

First we need to identify what is the most desired merit, enterprise?  Competitiveness? Sense of justice?  Scientific acumen?  Good looks?  Charity and Piety?   before we can discuss what is a better measure of it, and how to being about a meritocracy where that form of merit rules.

It is the lack of clarity about what are the most desirable virtue or merit from societal point of view that, I think, leads to flippant statements like wealth and influence denotes merit.   In that case almost all societies are meritocracies because in almost all societies someone gets rich and influential. That’s like saying goodness is whatever the outcome happen to be, rather than goodness is the abundance of a specifically desired quality. 

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Is your/our/a society equal or egalitarian enough, fundamentally, to be an effective meritocracy? Meritocracy can mean treating people with fundamentally unequal backgrounds as superficially the same which ignores and even conceals the real advantages and disadvantages that are unevenly distributed to different segments of an inherently unequal society. What would it take to make your society more meritorious in it's reward system. At what threshold of egalitarianism could a move from elitism of person to meritorious structure be a better step? Would it be a better step? Just open for thoughts and discussions.

I think people are (ideally) entitled to 100% of the fruits of their labor. But no one seems to be able to be figure out how to do things without some exploitation. It's like exploitation is some kind of constant that makes production possible. I think Marx had a pretty good idea of a meritocracy, but all the attempts to realize his vision are worse (in the exploitation department) than capitalism.

To me, elimination of all exploitation is essential if you are aiming for a "meritocracy." I mean, you can't call it a meritocracy if your "merit" can be claimed by those to whom it does not belong.

One thing I think we could do is implement free education (all the way through grad school) to students who demonstrate mastery. Scholarships and such do this to some degree, but they are more like a lottery (much of the time) than a functionary system that rewards merit.

It should be added the reason why all attempts to realize his vision are worse is because unlike his vision, attempts to realize it actually needs to deal with reality of human psychology and organizational behavior, which Marx blithely assume will just not hamper his utopia.

It is not a coincidence that the Soviet Union took early and strong interest in not only eugenics, but actual large scale human breeding experiments.   Very early on with its attempt at implementation  of Marxism, it became clear to those involved that the operation of the eventual communist world envisioned by Marx would be incompatible with the basics of human psychology, thus humans must be modified if utopia is to be utopian. 

This is also why Soviet Union rapidly backtracked from its early adherence to classless egalitarianism to Implementing systems of heritable privileges and rewards analogous to those in stratified societies.  It needed to do this to get anything done.   It continues to fool its citizens by pretending this is an temporary aberration necessary on the way up true communism.  But like Marx, it has nothing to say about how this could be made unnecessary some time in the future, besides signing communist version of  kumbaya, that is.

[BryanS]

A great majority of people want to work but can't. Do you think they should swallow their pride and work at Arby's? I'd rater give 20% of my income just to ensure they don't have to work at Arby's. Like you, I've never been on welfare. But I don't see welfare recipients as "freeloaders."

You have to look at the big picture. The Arby's corporation itself is the real freeloader.

"But they make so much work is done," you may object. "They generate wealth." So what? What does Arby's do that is more important than what a welfare mother does? Sell shitty roast beef sandwiches? So what? I've known welfare recipients that put Arby's to shame if you consider love and compassion more valuable than shitty roast beef.

But we don't live in a country that values love and compassion. We live in a country that values shitty roast beef. Yee ha! Let's pass these values on to our children.

I don't disagree and didn't really address the issue of corporations who pay less than the cost of living to an employee. That fast food employee is making little  enough to qualify for government subsidies. That's the sort of job that keeps the poor "poor enough" to qualify for benefits, but if they move up to a sustaining job, they lose all their benefits. So in addition to being a form of corporate welfare (it is), the benefits are a poverty trap. 

The welfare benefits allow a fast food joint to pay less than the cost of labor. But it's not so easy to just raise the minimum wage to make the problem disappear. If the labor subsidy is removed, it will incentivize corporations to rely more on capital (automation) than labor. The minimum wage probably does need to be increased, but a sudden large increase would likely be harmful due to disruptions it would cause--maybe phase it in over 4-5 years and index it to inflation. Everyone should be prepared, though, for some uptick in unemployment at the lower end of the labor market. By subsidizing low cost labor, we have only slowed down the pace of automation in retail and service industries.

[tackattack]

Welfare, poor traps, corporate taxes are all methods with the goal be equanimity of monetary success for individuals or it's reverse (subjugation of the poor). I'd rather not get into the viability of methods without first identifying the goal and defining it better.

@Anomalocaris - well the American dream used to be a chicken in every pot, or everyone has an opportunity to make a millionaire of themselves; neither of which seem to have come to fruition and don't seem to be going to. A lot of push (societally) now is about equanimity of opportunity and treating people evenly and fairly with a heavy sense of retributory justice. I believe the numbers prove that that doesn't serve the cause of equanimity of outcome. I'm not sure it's even a step in the right direction, but it's a step. I'm not sure the current trend in stratus of classifications that identify us separately (black, white, rich, poor, fat, skinny, woman, man, etc.) seem to be helpful goals either. I would think that competence would be a good goal for a meritocracy with a finer definition of something like "Are you smart (IQ) and compassionate enough (EQ) to effectively run your self/business/social circle to the betterment of yourself and as many others as you can reach". Possibly redefining power might help. What if power wasn't "the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events (due to wealth or whatever)" but more like " The greatest just sociological influence to co-opt, unify and attract support on your own merit".

Just to clarify, I don't really see societal power as a zero sum game nor do I believe in might makes right as a blanket. I grant that people would have to change. Change their understanding, opinions, drives, etc. but that none of it should ever be forced and I think is a natural evolution. IDK though, I should be busier at work, I'll catch up later. Thanks for engaging.

[notimportant1234]

We can talk about meritocracy all we want, but if we achieve it, the question that needs to be asked is, " Are aptitudes and talent our merit?".

---

These welfare benefits do not in any way confer a high quality of life--I could not imagine living that way--so I'm not making an argument that these people are just "too lazy" to work. 

A great majority of people want to work but can't. Do you think they should swallow their pride and work at Arby's? I'd rater give 20% of my income just to ensure they don't have to work at Arby's. Like you, I've never been on welfare. But I don't see welfare recipients as "freeloaders."

You have to look at the big picture. The Arby's corporation itself is the real freeloader.

"But they make so much work is done," you may object. "They generate wealth." So what? What does Arby's do that is more important than what a welfare mother does? Sell shitty roast beef sandwiches? So what? I've known welfare recipients that put Arby's to shame if you consider love and compassion more valuable than shitty roast beef.

But we don't live in a country that values love and compassion. We live in a country that values shitty roast beef. Yee ha! Let's pass these values on to our children.

I saw this afterwards, we are having this debate about social welfare in our country, a lot of people say that the people from the romani ethnicitie that are on social aid are freeloaders, but most of them would get low end jobs because of the Romanian extrem rasism, how will want that?

[Aegon]

Is your/our/a society equal or egalitarian enough, fundamentally, to be an effective meritocracy? Meritocracy can mean treating people with fundamentally unequal backgrounds as superficially the same which ignores and even conceals the real advantages and disadvantages that are unevenly distributed to different segments of an inherently unequal society. What would it take to make your society more meritorious in it's reward system. At what threshold of egalitarianism could a move from elitism of person to meritorious structure be a better step? Would it be a better step? Just open for thoughts and discussions.

In my organisation job applications are anonymized and gender and  age stripped from them until the interview invite.

Does that include their name?